


To Cure What's Deep Inside

by cuttooth



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Hope at the end of the world, Jon's world now, M/M, Speculative Archivist powers, Spoilers for S5 Trailer, apocalypse boyfriends
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-27
Updated: 2020-03-27
Packaged: 2021-03-01 09:28:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,623
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23349196
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cuttooth/pseuds/cuttooth
Summary: “We can’t just stay here waiting to die!” Martin snaps.“We might as well do it here as anywhere else!” Jon snaps back, and after that it turns into their first fight since the world changed.*Jon wishes for rain.
Relationships: Martin Blackwood/Jonathan Sims
Comments: 23
Kudos: 199





	To Cure What's Deep Inside

**Author's Note:**

> Hoo boy that trailer sure was something. D:
> 
> Title from "Africa" by Toto, because I have an appalling sense of humor.

His whole life, Jon’s understood that the anticipation of something bad is always worse than the thing itself. Waiting for pain or loss or grief to strike, the mind can conjure all sorts of disasters. But once the thing happens, it’s done. No matter how it hurts, how devastating it is, it’s quantifiable. Finite. You can assess the damage and start to move on, adjust to whatever the new normal is. 

In hindsight, it’s clear that he rather lacked imagination. 

He’s spent so long anticipating this, _fearing_ it; the Unknowing, the Dark Sun, all those failed rituals that threatened to consume the world in terror. And now that it’s happened, it’s worse than any horror he conceived of, over the years; a sweet, agonizing symphony of fear and pain and knowing and _knowing_ and _KNOWING_ and what he knows most surely of all is that this is _it._ There is no adjustment, no new normal, no getting used to the pain and the fear. Everything will be precisely this terrible, forever. 

The world is changed; it will not change again.

There’s no weather anymore. No sun but the vast eye staring lidless down at them. No wind but the howling of a million savage throats. No hail or snow or miserable autumn rain that soaks through your clothes and leaves you wet all day. Jon had been complaining about the rain, the day the world changed. Hadn’t wanted to go out for a walk, citing his lack of an umbrella; so instead Martin went by himself when he got back from the village, leaving Jon to his statements. 

He’d give anything for some rain now, for any semblance of the world he knew. For any sign that things might ever change.

Martin is doing his best, and Jon loves him so fiercely it aches in his chest. Loving Martin is the only thing that keeps him holding on, at times; keeps him from giving up and giving in to the horrifying _rightness_ of it. Martin clings to shreds of normalcy and optimism, talks as if they can make it through this, as if there’s some way out at the end. 

“How are you feeling today?” he asks, as if there’s such a thing as a day anymore. 

“It sounds a bit quieter out there,” he says, as if it weren’t all of creation screaming endlessly. 

“We need to decide what to do,” he declares, as if there’s anything they _can._ He folds out an AA road atlas of Britain on the kitchen table and starts plotting a route to London with a pen, along the back roads and away from major towns. 

“It might be safer,” he suggests, “These...manifestations, they might be more drawn to densely populated areas.” 

Jon thinks of the tiny village that once sat in the valley below them, its handful of residents, but doesn’t say anything about it. 

“We’re safer _here,”_ he insists instead. They have enough dried and tinned supplies to last them for weeks, as if Daisy was prepared for the end of the world herself. Nothing’s approached them here, not yet. And...they’re together. They’ve been together such a short time, barely long enough to get comfortable in each other’s space, to start learning about music tastes and sides of the bed and retro aesthetics. Not nearly enough time, after they fought and grieved and hurt so much to get here. 

_It’s not fair,_ he thinks, as if that was something the universe cared about.

“We can’t just stay here waiting to die!” Martin snaps.

“We might as well do it here as anywhere else!” Jon snaps back, and after that it turns into their first fight since the world changed. Their first real fight in years, actually, since the days when Jon was nitpicking Martin’s Latin declension and Martin was lecturing him about killing spiders. 

Martin is frustrated, and Jon gets it; he thinks Jon is depressed because of his part in this, and scared of what’s out there. He is, of course, but that’s not it. Not really. It’s just...there’s nothing to be done. No amount of cleverness or bravery or hope can change what’s unchangeable. Jon wishes he could explain that in a way Martin would understand, but human words aren’t really up to the task of describing infinite, all-encompassing horror. 

“I’m not letting you just - just give up!” Martin’s voice is hoarse and hurt and raw. “You didn’t let me, so you don’t get to now, okay?”

“It’s not... _giving up,_ Martin! It’s accepting the facts. This is how the world is now. The fears are here _,_ and we can’t _undo_ that. It would be like trying to - to unbake a cake.” 

“Maybe so,” says Martin, wearily. “But we still have to try. What’s the point of it all if we don’t even try?” 

He walks out of the room, and Jon hears him go upstairs. He sits there for a long time, turning over the cold, heavy weight in his stomach, examining it from all angles. Outside he can hear the howling, screaming cacophony of the world, endless and terrible and glorious and _god_ he wishes it would rain. 

Out of nowhere, he remembers the recording of Martin’s conversation with Simon Fairchild, which had made its way to his desk. The fragile bravery of Martin’s voice in the face of the uncaring vast: 

_I think our experience of the universe has value. Even if it disappears forever._

He finds Martin sitting on the bed, staring down at his hands. Jon goes and sits beside him, pressing their shoulders together, and feels the tension thrumming through Martin’s body, like he’s ready for another fight. Like he’s ready to keep fighting about this forever, if he needs to. 

“I’m sorry,” Jon tells him. “If we can get to London, find Basira and - and the others, maybe we can...I don’t know. But you’re right, we need to try.”

 _He_ needs to try, because he owes Martin that. He owes Basira and Georgie and Melanie, who fought so hard to free herself from all this. He owes Daisy, if there’s anything of her left in this changed, unchanging world. Even if it’s hopeless, even if he knows it can’t make a difference, he has to try. That in itself is what matters. That is what makes them human. 

“I love you,” Martin tells him, a simple statement of fact, and Jon knows it. Not like he _knows_ all the rest of it, all the pain and terror of this world. He just knows. 

That night, Jon dreams of rain. Or rather, it rains in Jon’s dreams; just a drizzle at first, pattering on the metal benches of the anatomy lab, turning the seeping blood pink. Then a steady rain, soaking through Tessa Winters’ jacket, running over her computer screen until it’s impossible to read the scrolling text; she blinks it out of her eyes as she types desperately. By the time he's in the underground carriage it's a torrent, hammering on the reinforced windows and flooding beneath the doors, turning the dirt to mud and carrying it away. It batters the yellow door, sweeps away legions of ants, legs and antennae waving frantically as the downpour washes everything clean. 

Jon turns his face to the sky, and he cannot see through the sheets of water cascading down.

He cannot see the Eye. 

“Jon!” Martin is whispering urgently, his hand on Jon’s shoulder. Jon sits bolt upright, his heart racing. 

“What is it?”

“It’s, ahh...I - I think it’s raining?” Martin’s tone is disbelieving. Jon’s breath catches and for a second he wonders if he’s still dreaming, but no, there it is, the unmistakable sound of rain hitting the roof tiles overhead.

“What the hell?” he mutters, and goes to look. Beyond the window is an unchanging gray twilight, but he can see the drops striking the glass, hanging for an instant and then running down in quick little rivulets. Martin comes up beside him.

“This shouldn’t be possible, right?” he says, excited. “You said, with the way things are, it shouldn’t be - ”

Jon kisses him. Martin makes a muffled sound against his mouth, and then his arms go around Jon and he kisses back with enthusiasm. When they part, Jon grasps Martin’s shoulders, breathless and almost laughing. 

“I had a dream, Martin,” he says. “About the rain.”

“You...had a dream?” Martin’s gaze goes to the window, spattered with raindrops, and then back to Jon, eyes widening. “You mean, you _made_ this happen?”

“I - I don’t know. I might have just anticipated it? Some sort of - of sympathetic psychic connection, maybe? But...maybe?”

“Maybe,” Martin repeats. “So maybe...things can change.” 

“I mean, yes? Perhaps?” 

Jon is trying very hard not to get excited about this, because he’s still not sure exactly what happened. It might be nothing at all. But he was thinking about the rain, wishing for it, and then Martin made him realize he still had to _try_ ...and now all this. It would seem rather a wild coincidence. He brought this world into being, after all, and he _knows_ it so intimately. It makes a strange sort of sense that he could have some influence; the nightmare logic these fears are so fond of. 

And if he can, then maybe - maybe there’s something to be done after all. 

“So,” Martin says, grinning at him, “Is it just the rain, or can you do other kinds of weather too? Bit of sunshine wouldn’t go amiss, if you’re taking requests.”

“I’ll keep it in mind,” Jon says, and they’re both laughing now, clutching each other, giddy with something that feels a lot like hope, while outside the rain keeps falling. 

**Author's Note:**

> Find me on tumblr [@cuttoothed](https://cuttoothed.tumblr.com/) waiting for the new season to destroy me.


End file.
